Finding out who is the poop offender

Losech

So um, I have a small problem. One of my dogs has been having cow-splats for a short while, and I have no idea who it is or why. I don't know when they go out to crap (we have a dog door so they have free access to the back yard, and I don't get up until about 1:00PM) so catching the cow-splatter in the act will be difficult. I haven't fed them anything exotic in a while (except last night, but the cow-splats have been going on since before then) so I don't think that is the problem, unless one of them keeps getting into something I am not aware of.
I was thinking that maybe adding something indigestible by dogs to their food one at a time would help spot the one with the problem, but I'm not sure what to use. Shredded raw carrots, maybe? I have never had this issue before.

Anyone got any experiences with this, or tips on what to do?

jellyfish

pumpkin always makes Toki's poop really pumpkiny and orange. That might help to find the culprit and help with the poop at the same time

shibamistress

I had no idea, but I've had this problem before! The pumpkin is a great idea--yeah, might clear it up, plus help you identify the culprit!

Saya

Pumpkin, sweet potatoes does it raw carrots too shows up in the dogs poop.

BradA1878

We use this service for this exact issue: http://www.pooprints.com/index.php/en/

We DNA our dogs, and then if we see some bad poo but can't figure out who it's coming from, we send a sample to the lab. ;o)

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ayk

LOL. Really? How much did that cost?

BradA1878

It was super expensive when we set it up, and we have not been good about adding new dogs. But we have the big dogs and the permanent dogs stored. I think it was $80 a dog. Test is like $25. It has helped us a lot a few times.

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curlytails

Damn @brada1878. I'm impressed.
Beats my idea of shredded carrots steeped in different colored food dye...

Zinja

^.^

Heidi

Holy crap!

Losech

Wow! That's pretty dang cool. I'd definitely do that if I had a lot of dogs. Right now I'm just gonna use rice and pumpkin and see what turns up.

TeamLaika

Have you found the culprit yet? Another trick is to use crayons. Crayola crayons are non-toxic (kids eat them all the time) so pick a color for each dog, use a cheese grater, and add some crayon shavings to their food. It's a handy trick for cats as well if they aren't using the litterbox appropriately. Finding an inappropriate urinator on the other hand, is a bit more complicated...

Losech

I think it was Sasha. I started with her, and gave her a bowl of rice and canned pumpkin instead of kibble. Cow-splats stopped, and so far haven't resumed yet. I guess she just needed a fiber sweep or something.

jellyfish

Colorful poop, lol

I'm going to remember the crayon method when I get another puppy

musashi

Glad things have calmed down.